Sing a praise and thankfulness to our LORD
- Have we ever considered how much God has blessed us?
- Have we paused to listen to our own voices as we complain?
In reading the biblical account of the Israelites during the period after they left Egypt, after they crossed the parted Red Sea, after their time at Mount Sinai, and after God provided manna from heaven for their substance, it was easy to be convicted for the many complaints lifted each day.
- LORD, it’s too hot, or Lord, this winter is long-lasting and it’s too cold.
- LORD, it’s too rainy, or Lord, we need rain because it’s too dry.
- LORD, can you help my body age gracefully because my body just hurts too much as the birthdays roll past.
- LORD, the world leaders and those we have voted into office just are not doing their job.
So, LORD, can’t you do something?
- LORD, the earth is getting so trash-filled, and why must we look at all the trash on our roadways and on the city streets.
- LORD, the world’s beliefs of right and wrong are not as they should be, and no one seems to be focused on YOU as they should.
Lord, why don’t you do something!!??????
- On & On—We complain.
- Over & Over—We see the way IT should be or the way IT used to be, so—We complain.
The people of the world are no different from God’s chosen people, the Israelites, who God led from slavery in Egypt to freedom in the Promised Land. Unfortunately, along the way, they complained.
“They wandered in the wilderness in a desert region;
(The Psalms 107: 4-9 NASB)
They did not find a way to an inhabited city.
They were hungry and thirsty;
Their soul fainted within them.
Then they cried out to the LORD in their trouble;
He delivered them out of their distresses.
[Let us sing together this chorus of praise and thankfulness to our LORD]
He led them also by a straight way,
To go to an inhabited city.
Let them give thanks to the LORD for His lovingkindness.
And for His wonders to the sons of men!
For He has satisfied the thirsty soul,
And the hungry soul He has filled with what is good.”
Whenever we find our lives, bodies, current situations, or comforts JUST the WAY we THINK they ought to be, may we pause, lift up our hands in praise, twirl, &
May we Sing a praise and thankfulness to our LORD.
In the Bible, we read the way the Israelites complained to the LORD and how they compared their current situation to their past. In their ungrateful hearts, they chose to forget their captivity and hard labor the LORD brought them out from when they were prisoners to Pharoah in Egypt.
“The rabble who were among them had greedy desires;
(Numbers 11: 4-6 NASB)
and also the sons of Israel wept again and said.
“Who will give us meat to eat?
We remember the fish which we used to eat free in Egypt,
the cucumbers and the melons and the leeks and the onions and the garlic,
but now our appetite is gone.
There is nothing at all to look at except this manna.”
May we recall how this “manna” was the very bread from heaven that GOD had provided daily for them to eat. Why is it that God’s people tend to look at God’s gifts from heaven and find fault? Have we forgotten from where the LORD has brought us? Do we wish to return to the land of the lost, to belong again to Satan? No, I do not think that would ever be a born-again believer’s desire, and yet, like the Israelites, we can become the world’s best complainers when the world, our neighborhoods, our bodies, our drives to work, our jobs, or our lives—are not JUST as WE WISHED they should be. OUCH! That stepped all over me and maybe you too.
So, what are we to do instead?
What words should we find ourselves proclaiming whenever complaints land in our hearts and proceed out of our mouths?
We are to recall from where the LORD has brought us when HE saved our souls, and we are to remember where our eternal destiny was BEFORE the LORD redeemed us.
- That’s when we should seek the LORD’S forgiveness for our complaining hearts. &
- That’s when we ought to instead Raise our hands in worship. &
- That’s when we are to Sing a praise and thankfulness to our LORD!